


Ethics of a Psychopath

by cemeterybat



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 20:44:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8072140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cemeterybat/pseuds/cemeterybat
Summary: (aka the sleepy hollow fic)





	

_“From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, this sequestered glen has long been known by name of Sleepy Hollow ... A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere.”_

 

Gerard stepped into the classroom only to be met with the stench of formaldehyde, the fetor hitting him like a brick wall. Across the rows of black lab tables were frogs- dead frogs- with their insides hanging out of their chest cavities obscenely. Gerard nearly walked right the fuck back out the door. Funny, a biology major sickened at the thought of viscera. Truly comical. Ray noticed his hesitation and rushed to drag him into the room before he could back out.

“Dude, if you pass out on me this time, we’re both failing the assignment,” Ray said, dutifully handing Gerard a pair of latex gloves, to which Gerard returned with a standard glare and groan. Gerard took a seat on the stool beside Ray’s, looking down at the recently deceased animal with a mixture of disgust and empathy.

“Fine. Though if you expect me to use these gloves to invade an animal’s body then you’re insane,” Gerard said, leaning back, far enough away from the frog at the edge of the table. Ray only raised an eyebrow and shrugged, before plunging his latex-clad hands into the chest to retrieve a fistful of organs. It was around this time that Gerard had to shove away the feeling of bile rising in his throat. His chair screeched in protest against the tile floor, like nails on a chalkboard, when he had scooted further away from the table.

“You’re such a pansy, c’mon, just label ‘em.” Ray had to stifle a laugh while he placed the organs in their respective places in the second bin. Gerard had snatched the worksheet off the table at the speed of light, though, before Ray could hand it to him with gut-laced gloves. Nope, not today.

It went like this for the next half hour- Ray extracting the organs and Gerard labeling them accordingly on the worksheet. And each time the teacher would stand up from his desk, stretch, and begin to walk around the room to survey the groups, Ray would slide the bin with what remained of the frog closer to the center of the table while Gerard returned his seat in front of the bin without question or complaint. He refused to be publically humiliated by that bag of wrinkles of a teacher again. Once was enough, thank you very much. And, to Gerard’s absolute irritation, the teacher had complimented Ray on his hard work on dissection and also filling out the worksheet. Once the teacher had moved on to the next group and out of earshot, Ray had burst into hysterics.

“Fuck you,” Gerard grumbled, dragging his seat back to his place far from the dissection happening. “Sorry I fail to reach your levels of kiss-ass, Ray Toro,” Gerard said, though with a grin on his face.

The teacher had finished his rounds and Gerard and Ray were placing the different organs in ziploc bags when the teacher had begun handing out “field trip permission slips”, despite the fact the class was full of juniors and seniors and not pre-pubescents. “Have your parents sign these and have them back by Monday if you want to go,” the teacher said, his tone monotonous. Gerard was already protesting until he saw where they were going- fucking sleepy hollow, the town’s ‘ghost spot’.

“No way,” Ray grinned, and Gerard nodded eagerly in agreement. Maybe they’d get to see some ectoplasm. They’d be the next ghostbusters.

“Our next unit is intro to forensics,” the teacher began, in the same mundane tone. “You’ll be following the town’s detective around and analyzing proofs, and applying various chemical compounds to each clue.”

While the teacher’s words droned on, Gerard was nearly vibrating with anticipation. “Think we’ll see any ghosts? Any severed heads?” Gerard grinned. However sickened he was by open frog corpses, he was still a horror junkie- one of the major reasons he and Ray had become friends.

“Shit, man, maybe they’ll let us see the victim’s cadavers,” Ray said while stuffing his permission slip into his back pocket. Gerard was not all too keen on that part, but he was ready to see some in-the-flesh ghosts (mind the pun).

“This is not English class, keep in mind,” the teacher said, his eyes focused on Gerard. The bastard.

“We will not be analyzing mythology or supernatural elements, but rather cold hard facts. Expect this to be part of your final grade for the first semester,” the teacher said, having to speak over the intercom when the bell for class had sounded.

Gerard groaned aloud at the mention of midterm finals while he made his way out of the class, using Ray and his large hair as a human shield to avoid any more confrontation from Mr. Asshole.

Gerard had hardly started senior year, and already midterms were next month. How this had happened, and how christmas was two months away, was beyond him. Halloween had already ended, and this was proof enough that Gerard had absolutely nothing left to look forwards to. This Sleepy Hollow project was the most interesting matter in his life as of now. Gee, what a life he led.

“Huh, are you actually gonna show up to this one?” Ray questioned with a nudge to Gerard’s ribs while they walked out of the classroom and into the endless swarm of teenagers in backpacks. Gerard returned a solid punch to Ray’s arm.

“I have to, right, or you’ll- what was it- dissect me yourself?” Gerard said, quoting Ray’s words from just last week. It appears Ray had dropped a whole letter grade down to a B due to Gerard’s absences. Gerard saw no correlation whatsoever, but if it was the teacher’s incentive to force Gerard to show up, it was working. Ray was firm when he wanted to be. Hell, Ray had even threatened not to let Gerard copy next semester’s homework if he didn’t start participating labs. As far as Gerard was concerned, both of them- Ray and Mr. Asshole- could kindly suck his ass.

Ray grinned at this. “Please, all you have to do is show up.”

“And ride the bus for a solid hour,” Gerard added glumly, not looking forwards to being trapped in a moving vehicle with the rest of the school scum for a half hour. Nah, he’d rather walk.

“C’mon, bring headphones, yanno, drown ‘em out with iron maiden,” Ray shrugged.

Gerard rolled his eyes and muttered a simple, “see ya,” before parting ways with Ray and disappearing into the sea of human bodies that was the school hallway.

Classes for the rest of the day went in a similar fashion- teachers droning on and Gerard expressing his distaste in the form of sighs and groans. To be fair, he genuinely enjoyed biology when it wasn’t dissection day, and the art class teacher seemed to know what he was talking about. Plus, the guy didn’t much mind if Gerard didn’t follow the realism assignment of a bowl of fruit, but instead drew various swamp monsters.

Gerard even managed to avoid Bert the entire day. Bert was the only remaining jerk-fiend from Gerard’s middle school years of torment and gay slurs. The other junior high bullies had found other interests to occupy their time, but Bert never found such passions. Well, except for maybe cocaine, but Gerard wasn’t sure if that was a fact or not. It was practically customary every day for Gerard to end up with a busted lip or a raging headache after an encounter with Bert, so Gerard counted it a win that he went home without pain flaring up somewhere.

Gerard announced himself with a loud slam of the front door, earning a displeased grumble somewhere within the house from his mom, and trudged into the kitchen for a long overdue cup of coffee. Since the school had banned starbucks distribution on campus due to a heated mormon protest, Gerard had been nothing but a walking corpse at best. It would take every ounce of his self control each day after he had finished his travel mug of coffee to not abandon school and rot in bed for the rest of the day. Seriously, fuck the mormons.

Gerard had just began to pour the creamer into his cup of coffee when he heard the familiar slight wheezing behind his shoulder, and he immediately spun around to block the impending blow, but to little avail. The attempt did nothing but lead to a sharp pain in Gerard’s ribs and liquid creamer spilling down the sides of the counter.

“Fuck you, Mikey,” Gerard heaved out, and debated whether to toss his unsweetened coffee in his brother’s face. He decided against it on the notion that he would then have to clean up two messes.

“You started it. Spilling ramen on my entire box of comics,” Mikey said, seeming to polish off his knuckles with his t-shirt like the absolute asshole that he was.

“You have no proof it was me,” Gerard pointed out, reaching over gingerly to snatch a handful of paper towels to soak up the wasted creamer which was now seeping into the peeling kitchen tile. “For all you know it could’ve been the cat,” Gerard grumbled while watching the remaining creamer drip onto the floor in accusing plops.

“We don’t have a cat,” Mikey said before shoving past Gerard for the coffee pot, emptying the last of the dark sludge into his own mug. “C’mon, let’s watch some Buffy,” Mikey said over his shoulder, deeming the dispute over when he was already turning on the decrepit old TV in the living room. The Ways spent more money on cigarettes and gourmet coffee than they did on much else, so cue the loose wood beams in the flooring and the flickering lights- it was almost like living in a recently abandoned motel, to which Gerard had no problem with. He loved their shitty home.

“What the fuck is this?” Donna’s voice signalled she must’ve found Gerard’s artful clean-up job from the creamer mess, which entailed half the roll of paper towels balled up on the floor.

“The cat did it,” Gerard said and plopped down beside Mikey on the living room couch.

“Funny. Clean it up,” Donna replied, clearly having none of his shit.

Gerard grumbled some incoherence in return- translated, meaning the sopping towels would remain on the floor for the next three days or so. The Buffy opening theme flooded the living room and Gerard downed his cup of coffee. “Also, there’s a field trip for a couple days next week. I need your signature,” Gerard called out to his mom and began rummaging through his backpack for the crumpled sheet of paper.

“You totally made that yourself,” Mikey chimed in upon seeing the permission slip.

“Actually, no,” Gerard said, handing the form over to his mom, who had snatched it with her acrylic claws, examining it.

“You expect me to believe your school is funding a trip to a forest?” Donna raised an eyebrow.

“For science,” Gerard nodded. “We’re using these proton blasters to trap ghosts into containment units,” Gerard said matter-of-factly. Mikey barked out a laugh. Donna rolled her eyes.

“Glad to know public education is still at its prime,” Donna nodded, handing the signed piece of paper back to Gerard.

“It could just be the school’s elaborate plan to kill off half the student body. Confine them in a forest, home of a serial killer,” Mikey offered.

“You’re just bitter ‘cause you haven’t had a field trip since the third grade,” Gerard sneered. Mikey lifted a hand to flip him off.

After a few episodes of Buffy and quality commentary on Gerard’s part, Mikey had disappeared to do homework and Gerard left to pack for the two nights in the cabins. When all was said and done, he had packed more bags of coffee grounds than he did underwear, a lifetime supply of marlboro reds, and had crammed their whole coffee pot into the suitcase. Knowing the school, they probably would’ve rented the shittiest motels/cabins they could get their hands on- ones that most likely didn’t include a single coffee maker in the entire building. It probably even had rats nested in the mattresses and toilets that didn’t flush, or something. Nonetheless it would be better than the formaldehyde classroom.

 

***

 

Approximately four days passed and Gerard now sat on a cracked leather seat of the schoolbus, Ray heartily eating a bag of chips beside him. Gerard had his face pressed up against the grimy cold window of the bus, watching the neverending mass of trees roll by like a broken record. Every once in awhile, a large plume of smoke and lethal pollution could be seen through the treetops from the local farms. Despite it being one in the afternoon, the whole place seemed to have a gloomy atmosphere, everything drenched in a thick layer of fog. It all practically screamed night of the living dead, as if Russell Streiner were about to appear from out of the trees, yelling, “They’re coming to get you, Barbara!”. Or maybe Gerard just watched too many zombie movies. Nonetheless, the zombie weather was real.

“Think we can get some of the locals to skip town if we have decent enough zombie impressions?” Gerard mused.

“I’d say we’d have better luck simply releasing a black cat out here. They seem more superstitious than anything,” Ray said inbetween chewing.

The both of them were lurched forwards when the obviously amatuer bus driver slammed the bus to a halt. Gerard would’ve almost felt sorry for the bastard- the poor man washed out in life and resorted to become a busdriver, and to not even succeed in that- if Gerard hadn’t slammed his head against the metal window latch, and debated flipping the man off instead. This trip was already proving to be a shitshow.

“Alright, everyone off the bus!” one of the biology teachers yelled, louder than necessary, and began to read off the list of names and corresponding room numbers. Gerard complied quick enough, following Ray to find their room keys, just desperate to have his first cigarette for the day.

“The beds aren’t made of straw, at least,” Ray commented when they finally budged the door open wide enough, the hinges rusted with disuse. There was a single floor lamp in the corner of the room so only a quarter of the place was illuminated, and the twin beds were the only other furniture in the room. All in all, it wasn’t much of an upgrade from Gerard’s shitty basement room at home.

“Public education is such a luxury,” Gerard nodded. He immediately went to unpack the coffeepot, setting it on the dusty carpeted floor to plug it in. “I’m going out for a smoke if you wanna join,” Gerard said, and he turned to find Ray already collapsing on the shitty mattress. Gerard got an incoherent jumble of words in response while he rummaged through his bag for his pack. “Alright, sweet dreams,” Gerard rolled his eyes before prying the door open and trudging back out into the cold.

It didn’t take long to find the infamous woods when there was a trail right behind the row of cabins. Gerard wasn’t sure if it was a biking or jogging path considering no one in the town looked much like the average jogger, but it was secluded enough that it served for a decent smoking spot. It must’ve rained the night before considering the ground was the equivalent of quicksand; Gerard decided he didn’t care for his shoes anyways.

He pulled out his pack, lighting one of the reds, and continued to walk- more like march- through the muddy woods aimlessly, quickly finding out that there was no end to the swamp. The wind felt like slaps against his skin and every once in awhile a branch would seem to lunge for Gerard’s skin like the trees had it out for him, the twigs even drawing blood from the scratches on his arms. He found out quickly that this wasn’t such a nice, friendly smoking spot after all. He cursed the woods, and because he apparently had a death wish, he trudged further. He wasn’t up for walking back to find teachers handing out assignments and organizing tour groups. Nah, he would rather drown in the quicksand-mud.

After finishing his first cigarette, he had started to appreciate the forest more. The way its skeletal bare trees clumped together, leaving some places isolated where small ponds had started to develop in the ground. It was already mid november so the fallen leaves had all grown sodden into the ground, making Gerard’s shoes crunch against the ground with every step.

The fog limited almost all visibility for a 5 foot radius, so Gerard almost didn’t see the guy if not for the loud, ragged breaths. And for a split second Gerard had seriously thought he had just witnessed one of the wood’s renowned ghosts. The guy was pale enough to be. Hell, he was nearly translucent, with blue-grey veins coiling his arms that were visible through tears in the flannel he was wearing. Gerard mostly considered himself to look pale and sickly, but compared to this guy, Gerard might’ve looked like he had a spray tan.

The guy seemed to be in a rush, but was graceful enough not to completely eat shit, instead somewhat skipping over the various logs littering the forest floor. Gerard had about 2 seconds to appreciate the tattered misfits logo on the back of the guy’s jacket before he had seemed to dissipate completely into the fog.

Seriously what the fuck.

Gerard wouldn’t be entirely surprised if that was the entire town’s superstition- just some punk kid running around the woods for shits and giggles. Gerard had a fleeting urge to follow the guy before his common sense kicked in and he realized he had no clue where the fuck he was. The trail to get back to the cabins ended awhile ago, and the clouds overhead held promises of rain. Gerard begrudgingly turned to walk the way he had come from, physically having to tug his shoes out from the mud, leaving wiltered leaves plastered to the now damp cuffs of his jeans. That was enough physical activity for the month or so.

Damn near an hour later, Gerard had dragged himself out of the woods on sore legs, covered in twigs and the like. In the process, Gerard had smoked the rest of his entire pack of reds, which only made him all the more relieved to see the shitty cabins. If he had been lost out in the woods, he would be fresh out of cigarettes and would probably have resorted to attempt to drown himself in the small derelict ponds.

When he had finally walked into his and Ray’s shared cabin looking like the swamp thing, Ray just scoffed and offered him a cup of coffee. Gerard nearly moaned at the sight, and had never been more excited for coffee in his life. According to Ray, they had the rest of the day to themselves to finish the dissection lab write-ups (which Ray had already finished the day before the assignment was even announced) and 7am tomorrow morning would be the trip to the town’s forensics lab. And after downing the bitter liquid, Gerard passed out, with the bed’s mattress feeling about as comfortable as the forest floor.


End file.
